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Detour Shanghai上海

30 June 2010

A travelling exhibition of Moleskine notebooks donated by international authors. New Chinese authors will join in Shanghai.At Bund18, October 20 - November 20, 2010.

Detour is an international cultural project featuring notebooks created by world famous artists, architects, film directors, graphic designers, illustrators, and writers. This unique traveling exhibition has already taken place in London (2006), New York (2007), Paris (Spring 2008), Berlin (Fall 2008), Istanbul (Spring 2009), Tokyo (Fall 2009) and Venice (planned for August 2010) for the Architecture Biennale. Next destination: Shanghai, in October 2010.

A number of internationally renowned Chinese authors will join the show together with international authors coming from several backgrounds such as illustration, graphic design, architecture, movie direction, photography, etc. The exhibition will take place in one of the cultural landmark of art and lifestyle in Shanghai - Bund18.All notebooks will be showcased online on the Detour video andphoto gallery. In the same period, the city of Shanghai will be under the spotlight of several important events such as Shanghai EXPO and Shanghai Contemporary, attracting a diverse creative crowd from around the world.

A Close View into the Creative Process in the Making. Curated by Raffaella Guidobono, the travelling group show Detour invites authors to compile and illustrate Moleskine notebooks with experienced knowledge insider tips for adventure hungry nomads. The flick through exhibition allows the public to connect closely with the authors and see their creative process "in the making". Notebooks are positioned in special transparent boxes, with openings for hands, through which the public can actually touch and browse through the pages, after wearing special gloves. Some works contain extensive stories, some are just collectors of rough ideas jotted down quickly by the authors, some others are turned into pieces of contemporary art and design. Among the authors who took part in the previous editions are the famous Japanese architectsKazuyo Sejima and Toyo Ito, the fashion designers Christian Lacroix, Antonio Marras, rock band Sigur Ros from Iceland, the Italian artist Giuseppe Amato, industrial designers Yves Béhar, Ross Lovegorve, Aldo Cibic, and Ron Arad, art critic and curator Hans Ulrich Obrist. The very idea of this travelling exhibition originated from what was happening organically among all those creative professionals who use notebooks for sketching, jotting down ideas, painting, creative writing, organizing. In 2006, Moleskine with lettera27 started collecting these works, showcasing them to the public offline and online, thus creating an innovative format for a new kind of flick through exhibitions.www.moleskine.com/detour/

myDetour, A Parallel Project for the Creative Communities.myDetour is a travelling project that takes place in concomitance with Detour exhibitions. It is dedicated to the vast community of Moleskine enthusiasts around the world. Anyone who loves to paint, illustrate, write or create freely on Moleskine notebooks can participate and win the opportunity to have his work displayed as part of the next myDetour exhibition and on the permanent myDetour online gallery. Those who wish to participate may do so by dropping their decorated notebook in special collecting boxes in 4 centrally located design stores and bookshops in Shanghai from October 20th to November 20th. These same 4 stores will also display works collected in previous cities. myDetour Shanghai is connected to many other myDetour events which took place starting from 2007 in New York, Paris, Berlin, San Francisco, Tokyo, with hundreds of people sharing their creativity worldwide. All the notebooks collected in those cities are now part of the lettera27 collection and travel the world with Moleskine events and installations. Notebooks displayed in Shanghai were collected in Tokyo, Paris, San Francisco, Milan, Berlin, whereas notebooks collected in Shanghai will be displayed in the next Moleskine exhibitions in 2011. This is only one of many notebook sharing and notebook crossing experiences happening online and offline in all continents, most of them organized over the internet, with online image galleries, web videos and blogs. See for example: Sketchbook Project, UrbanSketchers, Moleskine Grand Tour, 1000Journals, and Sketch Crawls.

myDetour locations in Shanghai are:

Aegis Shanghai

Shanghai Art Bookstore

City' Super Shanghai

Point To Life Bookstore

In addition, Moleskine will cooperate with several top art and design schools in Shanghai to present more decorated notebooks by the young talents. All the submitted notebooks will permanently join the lettera27 archive. The ten most innovative notebooks selected by the Jury will travel and be exhibited at the next myDetour event. www.moleskine.com/mydetour/

Detour Supports the Access to Knowledge. Detour exhibitions support the non-profit lettera27 Foundation. Detour and myDetour authors donate their notebooks to the Foundation, whose mission is to promote the right to literacy, to education and the access to knowledge all over the world and especially in the most deprived areas. lettera27 runs WikiAfrica, a project designed to africanize Wikipedia through networks, research, projects, publications, and events. The Detour project will also contribute to the Ailing Foundation, the art foundation under Shanghai Charity Foundation which was founded by Bund18.www.lettera27.org/

Bund18 and Ailing Foundation. On the crossroad of Nanjing East Road on the Bund, there stands the building of Bund18. Bund18 has been honored the Award of Excellence in the 2006 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Awards for Culture Heritage Conservation. In line with the original style, the new elements give new functions and vitality to this unique building. You will find out that everything's combined the last century's heritage and today's modern renovation techniques, Bund 18 is the essential way to experience both the old and the new Shanghai. The luxury boutiques, high-end restaurants, bars and the unique art gallery, make Bund18 the remarkable landmark of Shanghai.

Ailing Foundation (under SCF, Shanghai Charity Foundation) was instituted in memory of the late founder of Bund18, Ms Janette Ailing Chang's support for the disabled. Its goal is to promote respect and compassion for the disabled, as well as to support artists through hosting young artists from China and abroad and organizing exhibitions in "Art House" which is a project under the foundation. Moreover, the Foundation seeks to increase the quality of life for the disabled by promoting art appreciation. To contribute the society, every year, Ailing Foundation donates to help the children who were unable to go to school or in hospital and the families which have suffered by traffic accidents.www.bund18.comwww.ailingfoundation.com

Glossary

Moleskine was created as a brand in 1997, bringing back to life the legendary notebook used by artists and thinkers over the past two centuries, amongst them: Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, and Bruce Chatwin. A trusted and handy travel companion, the nameless black notebook held invaluable sketches, notes, stories, and ideas that would one day become famous paintings or the pages of beloved books. Today, Moleskine notebooks accompany creative professions and the imagination of our own times: they have become a symbol of latter-day nomadism, and they are intimately tied to the digital world through a network of websites, blogs, online groups, and digital archives. www.moleskine.com

lettera27 Non-profit foundation, born in July 2006. Its mission is to support the right to literacy, education, and the access to knowledge and information. lettera27 is the 27th letter of the alphabet, the missing letter, the letter yet to be, the hybrid sign, the empty box, the link between oral and written words, the connection to the future, the intersection of analogic and digital. www.lettera27.org

Raffaella Guidobono, Curator Raffaella Guidobono is an Independent Curator and Art/Design Advisor working between Italy, Latin America and Turkey. She has also curated the Moleskine Detour group shows in London, Paris, New York, Berlin, Istanbul, and Tokyo. www.wadalaw.com

Zetalab, Exhibition Designer Zetalab designed the Detour and myDetour exhibition system, as well as all graphics and videos. Based in Milan, Zetalab is a brand and communication design agency that develops successful projects for companies, products and institutions. Some of its members are active in teaching in Italian universities and renown design schools. www.zetalab.com